Kiev 30 16mm sub-miniature camera - a Soviet take on the Minolta 16

Take a look at this little beauty … comrades. A Kiev (Киев) 30 16mm sub-miniature camera from the early 1980s, made in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine).

The Kiev 30 16mm sub-miniature camera, cassette, instruction manual (in Russian!) and very Kodak-looking box …

I view this camera through three separate lenses, so to speak.

Firstly, as a Cold War historian and author (see www.andrewlong.info if you want to learn more), I’m fascinated by the Soviet Union’s (and much of the former Soviet Bloc’s) approach to design and manufacturing, drawing liberally ... from products made by Western manufacturers, in this case, quite literally (more of that in a bit).

Around 1,000,000 of these little cameras were produced between 1974 and 1983, so there are a lot of them still in circulation.*

The certificate of conformity in the instruction book, hand-signed and stamped April 1983

As a photographer and fan of the sub-miniature format, the Kiev 30 is a nice little camera. With its all-metal construction it is chunky piece of kit - it weighs in at 190g but is smaller than a pack of cigarettes. The camera clearly shares a ‘passing resemblance’ to the Minolta 16 II (see below!), with a similar pull-push operation, a 23mm lens, aperture, speed, and basic focus controls, and a clever Sunny-16 based exposure calculator on the back - it is fully manual/mechanical. The film cassette, taking standard un-perforated 16mm film, is unique to this camera, so the (very similar) Minolta 16 cassettes are not compatible, which I didn’t realise when I bought it. Hey ho, another unique format to play with. Time will tell how it shoots, as I need to replace the felt in my one useable cassette.

Pull the camera open and the lens, shutter release, and focusing wheel are uncovered - a red dot in the lens window shows that the shutter is cocked. The rudimentary viewfinder is on the right

With the camera pulled open, the shutter release and basic focusing wheel are revealed. The red circle with a line through it shows the focal plane, and the red dot on the focus wheel shows the hyperfocal distance (5m in this case).**

On the side of the camera, which you grip to pull it open, there are the aperture and shutter speed controls - the camera only has these three speeds.

On the back is a clever exposure calculator. Select the film speed (this uses the Soviet GOST system, which was similar, but not identical, to ASA/ISO).*** Then select the prevailing light conditions, and the dial displays suitable aperture and shutter speed combinations.

Release the catch on the bottom of the camera, and the case slides off revealing the exposure counting mechanism - the all-metal construction is obvious here.

The film compartment is under the spring, hinged at the top.

With the film compartment open, the cavity for the plastic film cassette is revealed. The wheel on the left engages with a sprocket in the cassette to move the film on. It can be a bit fiddly to get the cassette to sit properly.

The case is simple, functional, and utilitarian - very Soviet!

Finally, as a lapsed (and hopefully reformed!) marketing man, I can’t help but smile at the blatant copying of the Minolta 16 II’s design, so much so that parts are supposedly interchangeable. When you compare the photos of my Minolta 16 (the gold one) and Minolta 16 II (the silver one), it’s obvious where the design of the Kiev 30 has come from. Intellectual property lawyers in Japan must have been fuming, but the Soviets didn’t give a damn about such niceties! And the choice of Kodak’s house colours of yellow and red on the box can’t have been an accident.

A stack of Minolta 16s … no, wait, is that a Kiev 30 on top?

The gold Minolta 16 vs. black Kiev 30 vs. gold Minolta 16 II.

A 'passing resemblance' to the Minolta 16 II is obvious when the outer case is taken off …

However, and this is very Soviet, they’ve ‘improved’ it, by adding a focusing wheel, and an end-profile that is, arguably, easier to hold as you pull out the action. The lens also focuses out to infinity across the aperture range, unlike the Minolta 16 II which requires the elusive No. 0 filter. Although the build quality doesn’t appear to be as good (also very Soviet) as its Japanese ‘cousin’, it’s meant to have a good lens, so we’ll see. The instruction manual is, of course, in Russian, but I’ve found an English version on line. Really looking forward to shooting this along with its ‘inspiration’, the Minolta 16 II!

And to bring things bang up to date, the Kiev 30 was made at the Arsenal factory (as in arms manufacture, not football!) in Kiev, which, of course, is now known as Kyiv, so … Slava Ukraini!

* There's a stamp in the manual showing it was bought on 16 January 1987 for 15 roubles. which was discounted down from 30 roubles. The Soviet economy was in free-fall at this stage (it was 9 months after the Chernobyl disaster) and it's hard to make meaningful currency comparisons as the rouble was not traded internationally. However, it's possible to benchmark the selling price against other items. For example, a good monthly salary at the time was around 200 roubles. A good pair of shoes would cost between 50 and 100 roubles. A winter coat around 200. A good meal for 2 with wine was about 5 roubles. A one-way train ticket from Moscow to St Petersburg was about 12 roubles, with a plane ticket about 20.

** Hyperfocal distance is the distance at which a lens can achieve the maximum depth of field.

*** GOST, GOsudarstvennyi STandard, was a Soviet era film speed standard in effect from 1951 to 1987. GOST ratings are typically 90% of the ASA rating, or conversely, ASA figures are 11% higher than GOST. In 1987, the Soviet Union adopted the internationall ISO system.